Notes from the Stenographer Notebook
by BF110C4
Summary: This is a place for whatever I have that doesn't merit their own space. One shots, discarted ideas, I.C. responses, etc.
1. Melody Powers and the Crystal Boutique

Melody Powers and the Crystal Boutique

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

This is the one shot of which the original version of chapter 04 of my story To Annoy a Mockingbird came from.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

_It had taken Melody Powers, Defense Lawyer and occasional lawbreaker more than half an hour to reach to roof of the mall, and another hour of timing the suspiciously well trained rent-a-cops to find a hole big enough on their patrols to sneak inside the Grassfield Mall. The easy part was over._

To see Daria on a public setting was a weird occurrence by itself, the fact that it was a school related activity make it even weirder, but what make such an appearance a truly bizarre even worthy of an special episode of Sick, Sad World was the sight of the small writer standing on the stage. On her hand was her latest story, a legal thriller, just without the legal part, and with mindless violence thrown in for fun, perfect for teens with a short attention span.

_As Melody played with her set of lock picks, she reassured herself on the importance of her self-appointed mission, how would she exonerate John Grissham from the murder, if no one dared to investigate Velle and her chain of thrift stores 'Crystal Boutiques'. At last, with a final click the door to the office of the store was opened._

To Daria's mind the worst part of being here was that in a very indirect manner her suffering and the suffering of many other students of LHS was her fault. When discussing the theft that had forced the closure of .com, the school sponsored cybercafé, she had made one of her patented cynical commentaries, using a tone of voice that would left pretty clear her lack of interest in the matter to a five year old, the problem was that she forgot that O'Neill had been emotionally left behind well before the terrible three.

_It was weird, while she was sure this was Velle's office there was something wrong in there, the documentation in the desk was too bland, too unsubstantial for the supposed volume of work, this was not the office of the CEO who controlled over 50 stores in the U.S. alone… this was a front. But a front for what?_

Instead of taking her remark as an obvious form of sarcasm O'Neill had taken them as a suggestion to go back to the roots of civilization when humans were forced to tolerate each other and talk between themselves until one of them snapped and killed the rest with a rock. This had to evolve on his little mind as a project to reopen the place as a traditional coffeehouse, one with live entertainment.

_After her failure on Velle's office Melody decided to try looking on some of her lackeys' offices, with luck there could be at least a clue of what was goi… what was that? The noise came from the store proper, but at this hour there shouldn't be anyone there. Carefully Powers went to the door that connected the administrative section with the store and crossed over._

Under pressure by her mother to get some additional extracurricular activities Daria chose to support the coffeehouse by the noble act of selling chocolates, and her hard won self-respect, door-to-door. And because misery just love company she had managed to convince Jane to join in with the promise of an additional credit in English and the chance of looking for some freaks to add to their photographic and anecdotal collection. Be careful what you wish for…

_Inside the store four young girls that Melody recognized as the Runway models that she met on last week's Crystal Boutique Fashion Parade, but they were quite different from the catty airheads that would criticize her clothing and didn't now what a textbook was for. Now they were pushing a heavy cart full of clothes, with no concern for their appearance and a thousand-yard stare. The single most frightening thing however was the absolute silence in sharp contrast from the rumor mongering and idiotic little giggles that followed them everywhere, even the bathroom._

It was on the very first house of their selling route where they found Mrs. Johanssen, a woman of not so sunny disposition who looked as a close relative of the whales. When told the word chocolate she was as captive an audience can be, offering to buy their entire stock plus whatever other candies they could get their hands on. At time point the voracious woman began to copiously sweat, while her pupils dilated and a slight shake of her body became noticeable. Under further interrogation she confessed her Hypoglycemia as well as the strict orders of her doctor to avoid sugar and eating in excess.

_The clique went forward on their duty, collecting certain clothes from the racks without any apparent reason, a sock from here, some loafers from there, all while Powers closely followed them, hiding behind those same racks, trying to find a clue of what the hell they were doing, until they suddenly changed their pattern and when directly to the dressers in the Junior Ten's section. It was then when by accident Melody finally made a noise._

At that point it became obvious to the girls that they had the moral obligation to deny her offer, no matter how much more she was willing to pay for the chocolate bars; in fact her anger was such than during a fit worthy of a three year old she suffered a mild seizure. After confirming she was alive and breathing well enough that there would be no need for mouth-to mouth ventilation, which was a relief since neither girl had a lot of practice on First Aid and they had even less interest in kissing a complete stranger, they went inside the house and dialed 911, while Jane took care of the woman while taking snapshots of her prone body. They would later learn from the EMTs that as far as they were concerned the visit to Mrs. Johanssen was a weekly business.

_When the models heard the sound of the fall of the precariously balanced mannequin, Melody was hiding behind one of the displays near by, when one of the zombies peeled herself from the rest she forced herself not to breathe and take cover to avoid discovery. It was only after she was sure than her enemy had lost the interest that she finally raised her head, just to discover that the models and their cart were gone without a trace…_

On the next day less than five minutes had passed from their arrival to the school when Jane and Daria were called from the economics class to Principal Li's office, which was curious since they still had the rest of the week to gather the rest of the money for the coffeehouse and to their knowledge they hadn't being caught doing anything wrong yet. The reason that Li had to recall them was unexpected, it seemed that Mrs. Johanssen was determined to be as much a pain in the ass as possible, she had being released from the hospital and had immediately called the school to complain about the nasty green jacketed girl and the black haired buffoon. Li then expressed her lack of understanding of the value of human life and her perfect understanding of the value of chocolate bars, complaining about not only for bothering a client who had cooperated to support LHS in the past, but even worse for refusing the increased payment and denying the needed revenue. Daria's answer was that she had been a Good Samaritan.

_This was impossible; there was no way they could have disappeared in the short moments she was too busy hiding, the exits were to far away and the cart itself was too big to cover anywhere. Calming herself she then went to the last place she saw them and started looking out for clues. Luckily the wheels of the cart had left a faint trace she could follow, although it ended on the death end that was the "Fitting Room Eight". _

Daria then explained the State's 'Good Samaritan Laws' and how they protect from fear of being sued or prosecuted those who choose to tend to others who are injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated; and how under those laws their decision to deny chocolates to a diabetic and instead to call for help was fully justified. Then before Li could counter the previous statement then Daria continued with her exposition of the 'Duty to Rescue' concept, which arises in a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party in peril. While neither of those laws directly applied on this particular circumstance, Li didn't know that, nor was she willing to put LHS on the spot under a negative light.

_Fitting Room Eight was a reserved dressing room, used by the ugly and unpopular people so that they couldn't pollute the regular clients; they even had a plaque explaining that on the door, and it didn't make any sense, Crystal Boutique already reserved the entrance to their facilities to a few rich and famous, there wasn't any need for such an obvious dressing room._

However she was still hoping to get her pound of flesh from our lack of funds, for those reasons for the first time in a long time Daria was happy to find that Quinn had surpassed her in something. After all it is not a common occurrence that a student, no matter her grade, could sell Five Thousands Dollars worth of phone cards, therefore reaching all by herself the target figure needed to open O'Neill's little hippie dream. And letting both Jane and Daria without a fundraising activity to get the extra credit and the out-of-music-class card.

_Examining the dressing room Powers immediately noticed that for being a place reserved for whatever outcasts they couldn't kept out, and she was so suing the place for discrimination as soon as she was out of here, was the biggest fitting room she had ever seen, dwarfing the rest by a wide, wide margin. Working on a hunch, she started softly knocking the walls, until one of them sounded different, less solid. It was then when she noticed that the hanger was out of place, a little too low and off-center to be comfortable; it could be another way to annoy the ugly people out of the establishment, but…_

In order to keep their participation on the coffeehouse project, Daria and Jane had been forced to do something else top earn their credits. For Jane is was a boon, since she had been able to squeeze Li for the right to do the banners and décor of Café Lawndale to a cheaper cost; in addition of being able to use her artistic abilities and to make the official color of the place a beautiful Puke Green, she was going to kept the remaining supplies for her own art. On Daria's case things weren't as easy, since her artistic abilities were more in the realm of the written world and that would mean to read her stuff on stage since she couldn't get O'Neill to distribute photocopies of her work. And there was the fact that she lacked appropriate material for the opening, maybe if she wrote something new…

_When she pressed the hanger the false wall opened itself, revealing a ramp going down on a more or less gentle slope, a faint sound of machinery being heard alongside a sensation of heat. Following the road she finally reached a steel door, and beyond it a scene out of the third world… It was a sweatshop, filled to the brim with rail thin girls working on the sewing machines or with huge scissors, piles of fabric and clothes all around them, Melody noted with disgust that the children were bond to the tables with a rope tied to their ankles, and that from time to time some of the older women inside would hit those who didn't work fast enough._

During the opening night both friends sat in one of the tables on Café Lawndale, Daria was waiting her turn with some well hidden nerves, nerves that weren't helped at all by some of Jane's commentaries about breaking a leg or an arm when the tomatoes finally came into play. After one of the stoners song some lines before destroying his own guitar on stage; Brittany and Kevin attempt to do Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene and some excellent lines of poetry courtesy of Andrea it was finally Daria's "Melody Powers and the Crystal Boutique" turn.

_Melody hid behind one of the stacks of clothing, using her small camera to get as many snapshot s as possible of the illegal factory, this had officially become bigger than her, bigger than another corporation playing hardball with their suppliers, the knowledge that such a place existed under the Crystal Boutique would be enough to destroy Velle's imperium in a single stroke. It was then when she saw one of the doors open and carrying their loot from upstairs the Fashion Mafia… no it was wrong to call them that, they were victims as well, got the dresses out carefully laying on top of one of the tables the clothes, and then cutting them open to subtract small pouches filled with a white powder._

To the shock of the people inside Café Lawndale Daria was for the first time in their collective memory putting some emotion to her voice other than annoyance or sarcasm; she had learned long ago from both her mother and a plethora of movies that the clue of success on the court was to convey the right amount of emotion on the correct moment, and that was exactly what she was aiming for with this hastily written piece of fiction, adapted from a much more detailed novella on the works.

_Drugs, now it all made sense, the Crystal Boutique was used as a front to get high quality heroin to the high society of Grassfield, they used selected clothes to hide the cargo and restricted the clientele to limit the number of people that could discover them. Then they used illegal and desperate girls to do both be couriers and do the heavy lifting, getting the most beautiful ones to work as models while virtually brainwashing them and then keeping them high between parties. Now she needed to get out with the photos and call the coppers to deal with… There was a shadow moving behind her, she needed to… _

The patrons of the coffeehouse were silent, high on adrenalin borrowed by Melody Powers, and as a man they all jumped when the buzz of the clock used to time and limit the performances sound off. Without missing a step Daria closed her notebook and thanked the audience for their attention before getting down the stage. It was a few seconds later than people started complaining wishing to know what happened to the lawyer. Daria, who much to her surprise, had enjoyed being the center of attention for once decided to invite them the next week for the second part, therefore committing herself to the Café Lawndale for the foreseeable future. After that Kevin decided to start a mob to burn down the Crystal Boutique, something that was going to be quite hard as they didn't exist.

It was the next morning, reading the newspapers with her father, when Daria realized that maybe Kevin and his band of misfits were both more stupid and more determined than she ever gave them credit for. On the front page there was a photo of Cashman's and J.J. Jeeters, graffiti on the walls, broken shards of glass and strips of fabric everywhere. Luckily enough no one had been arrested and therefore no one would be able to officially connect the vandalism with her piece of pop literature. On a brighter note, buried in the cultural section there was a small article detailing the success of the Café Lawndale and the work of the students, alongside an interview with Timothy O'Neill who was probably crying tears of pride right now. To tell Quinn about how her cooperation had helped her to be part of the coffeehouse was on the other hand a bittersweet memory, in one hand she hated to acknowledge the occasional usefulness of her baby sister, on the other hand her screams of terror when she told her of the fate of her favorite fashion spots were sweet music to her ears.


	2. World Shortest Crossovers I

A cloud of blue smoke rose between Jane and the menacing members of the track team, from it a figure clad in a purple coat, a hat and a mask, purple as well, concealing her face with the only exception of her brown hair, completing the ensemble was a cape in the same color as the rest of the clothes.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the pebble in your running shoes..."

"Quinn what are you doing dressed like that?"


	3. Sailor Daria

**Sailor Daria**

Jane knew something weird was going on when she alongside Daria where interrupted in her home in the middle of preparing one of her art attacks by no other than Sandi Griffin. After all she wouldn't be caught dead talking with either of them, much less coming to the Casa Lane, which as far as she was concerned was as weird as a vampire going inside a church.

When Sandi finally stopped looking at both of them in a weird way she started talking and then things got weirder. "So loser, I see you have a pure and bright soul, so why don't you make it easier for me and give me your pure crystal heart?"

"Sorry run out of crystal, but I think I have some jelly bears in the kitchen…" She waited for Daria's own punch line, but when it didn't come she turned towards her friend.

Daria had this weird look, between annoyed and resigned, just as if she was forced into double family time. "Jane, why don't you run outside until I dealt with this pest?"

"What, and missing you tear a new hole into Sandi? No way!"

During all that Sandi had been getting angrier until she couldn't hold any longer. "Too late, Artrica get me Jane's pure heart!"

Jane couldn't believe he eyes when the sculpture she had been working on suddenly took a bizarre female shape and started moving… and shooting acid paint from her mouth.

As she dodged the corrosive paint she saw in the corner of her eye how Daria got out of her pocket a ridiculous pen with more pink ornaments that even Quinn would be willing to use.

"_Cynic Power Make Up"_ After shooting that battle cry with an embarrassed voice Daria started glowing while her clothes disappeared and after a sequence of movement in which the flashy lights were the only thing preventing her from seeing her best friend in her full naked glory while somehow she was being redressed again.

When the light show was over she was able to see for the first time Daria's new look. It was pink with slight traces of green, it was frilly, had a hearts motif that Disney princesses would envy. And its skirt was so short that she could see her friend's derriere clearly from her vantage point.

Then she got a cue card and read it out loud in the most annoyed monotone she had ever heard from her friend. "Art is something that the artists pour all of their emotions to be enjoyed by all people, not to be used to terrorize the innocent. In the name of the moon I'll punish you."

While Jane was choking on the uncharacteristic speech Daria got some sort of pink and gold wand out from somewhere (and god only knew where she could hide anything in the body fitting dress) and yelled once more _"Golden heart of gold, banish."_ Then a huge golden heart came out of the wand and the monster was gone and in his place her sculpture lay there broken.

"This isn't over I'll have the pure hearts sooner or later Sailor Cynic!" With that Sandi ran away.

There was a moment of silence before Jane finally asked. "So you're a magical girl?

"Yes, there was this furry little animal that wanted to get Quinn to fight the forces of evil but he missed with his magical transforming ray. I'll let him on Highland under the care of a couple guys I knew." The evil smile at the end told Jane all she needed to know about those friends.

"And the speech?"

"Contractually obligated, at least the same contract obligates the evil forces to hear the speech before the fight."

Then she noticed the slight shiver of her friend. "Cold?"

"Yeah, especially when fighting ice monsters. If I ever catch the pervert who designs these things I'll put this wand where the sun does not ever shine."

-Fin-


	4. Irony

**Irony**

Jodie knew irony when it hit her in the face.

After Black Friday her family wealth had taken a sudden dive, when Andrew Landon heard from ones of his buddies in the government of a new oil deposit between the borders of Israel and Libya he had done a huge investment in the oil company more likely to get the concession. At her mother's insistence they had poured more of their liquid savings on the maneuver, after all they had pretty good information, and they also had their business to fall back if the windfall wasn't as big as expected; even then they had thee basic common sense not to put into the pot neither the college trust of their children nor the house. As far as calculated risks went it wasn't a big or stupid one.

The irony of someone trying his hand at inside trading and then having a full scale thermonuclear war in the middle of their investment was not something easily dismissed. The Black Friday burned not only millions of lives and a virtual sea of black gold, but also destroyed the wealth of the Landon Family in a single stroke. Not even the part of their fortune they considered secure had been spared, the folding coffee cup that had brought so much money to her family suddenly passed from being a cheap product for the people in the move to be a luxury item due to the use of oil based products.

The result was that for the first time in years her parents were forced to work for a living, with her father selling out the remaining of his companies to pay business debts and her mother using her own personal savings, which curiously weren't part of the investment she insisted in the first place, and using that money to start alongside Charles Ruttheimer the Second an electric car company, following the local success of Daria Morgendorffer by licensing the Vortex, a plug-in electric vehicle.

Personally Jodie thought that while profitable in the short term, with the current technology and the government plans for the induction network it might not have a great future, her mother on the other hand was sure that the vehicle could be used for a low energy consumption local commuter. In reality it didn't matter unless they were able to adapt to the changing circumstances, especially the lack of solar cells, which were produced mostly by the Chinese, and now that global commerce was in such a bad situation were used for their own local market, knowing the Chinese they were trying to see if their cells surplus could be used to move tanks. Her mother was already shouting 24-7 on the phone to get access to one of the national suppliers, which understandably were overwhelmed with orders. At one point someone had suggested to strip bare a Solar Farm, but the on board engineer had shut down the idea due to technical issues.

It was so ironic that with the greater hardships on the horizon the quality of life of Jodie had improved considerably in the last few months. The dismissed economic power of his father alongside the bitter aftertaste of the one occasion he tried to use (or abuse) his modest governmental connections had stopped cold all of his political ambitions and with those the never ending pressure of networking. Now that he was a stay in father he also took the lion share of the chores, being far less bitter about those than his wife which was a testament of how bitter Michele had been rather than how accepting Andrew was of his current situation. Michele on the other hand couldn't be happier with her actual circumstances, she was once again the big bad corporative shark, working full hours and then some trying to get her brand new business to flourish; and therefore being too busy to interfere with her daughter's life, not to mention having too much fun to keep living vicariously through her anymore.

But now that she had all the time she ever wanted and then some, Mack was the one too busy to see her.

When the prices of fuel skyrocketed hundreds of small business sank into bankruptcy, amongst those were the repairs shops that suddenly ran out of cars to repair, and Mack's dad was amongst the mechanics that were about to lose everything. Salvation however came from the weirdest place in this case it was Jake Morgendorffer who requested a small towed trailer for his daughter solar car. It was a modest thing, basically a small power plant in wheels for those occasions in which extra power might be needed, it didn't brought a lot of money but it did something better, it brought hope.

The Mackenzies decided to hold nothing back; they mortgaged their home and emptied their whole saving account, Mack's modest college fund included, in order to retool their repair shop towards the maintenance of electric and hybrid cars. Their first success was to adapt the local supply trucks into something that was economically viable. It took a lot of late nights, the consultancy of Daria Morgendorffer, and a lot of car batteries bought from the owners of cars that were now more expensive than most people could afford with the current salaries, but in the end they were able to get a primitive and inefficient electric engine inside those trucks; it needed to be plugged in for a long while on each destination and the vehicles were stripped bare of any additional weight to reduce the stress the engine was suffering, but even with all those inconveniences it was still far cheaper than anything else at the beginning, months ahead of the first commercial kits, and it saved the local transport companies from bankruptcy.

The money and reputation gained from that first victory was used to buy off the impoverish competence and virtually dominate the local market. But now Mack was too busy helping his family, even if his father still would not let him within twenty feet from money, helping as a part time mechanic, studying in any and every engineering class he could get his hands on, in and out of school, and searching for the best suppliers available for the still scarce lightweight, high energy density batteries needed for the next generation of electric vehicles that was starting to roll on the streets.

The greatest irony was that now their lives were reversed and she was in the position of being the one set aside for the many obligations her boyfriend had for his family and future.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

This is my entry into the Iron Chef Challenge of No Gas! over at the Paper Pusher Message Board which is explained by DeacBlue as:

_The main idea is that oil production worldwide is drastically curtailed. In my storyline, the US has some gas production, but not nearly enough to power all the cars, so what the government has decided to do is reserve the great majority to itself and the military, while building infrastructure and vehicles to support an electrical vehicle economy. Gas is well over $200 a gallon, and for the moment, anyone who had built a homemade electric car or solar-powered car is in a good position. Daria built two - a Vortex three-wheeler plug-in electric, and a Tokai Challenger, a solar-powered car with a small battery backup, currently driven by Helen. Daria runs a taxi service when she's not at school. Play on with your ideas._


	5. In the woods (Terror)

**In the woods**

Susan and Helen were running from the Lawndale woods, their hippy clothes getting rips on the fabric as they ran desperately from their persecutors, not too far behind.

"I told you we should have gone to the beer binge at Sigma Stigmata's!"

"I didn't hear you complaining when Coyote and Willow told us they were planning a party here in the middle of nowhere!"

_Coyote and Willow had invited their little commune to celebrate the official end of the Vietnam murder doing a communion with the fertility goddess in the Lawndale Forest, filled with booze, pot, hot steamy sex and these radical glitterberries they had discovered. Vincent Lane and his sweetheart Amanda, the recently married Morgendorffers, and the freshmen Susan and Doug were the only ones to take the offer to go to the woods instead of the far more comfortable lodgings in the frat house._

_The party had started just as many of their little reunions, with loud music from a boom box, beer cans, thick clouds of pot and the giggles of one or another couple playing behind the bushes but then Willow called them to a clearing._

"_Hey, I found this little gem in one of those books that the Anthropology TA Li wants to bane, damn Nazi, it seems fun to try out."_

"_Let me see… What language is this?"_

"_Sound like German or maybe Greek."_

"_Oh well, at least we could draw the symbols. Could you give me a hand Vince?"_

"_Sorry sweetheart, I'm recording this for posterity." He was indeed using his 8mm camera to tape the clearing._

"_No problem my friend, we're almost done here." Between Amanda, Willow and Coyote, the most artistically oriented of their group, they had drawn a pentagram in the earth with the help of sticks and stones._

"_And to celebrate, I gathered some of the berries I was telling about, believe me, you're going to reach the stars with these." One by one he passed his hat, filled to the brim with the shiny berries until Jake's turn came._

"_Sorry man, I pass." Helen could see Doug open his mouth to tease Jake, but Coyote beat him to it._

"_Your father?"_

"_Yeah, thanks to that damn Mad Dog and Buxton Ridge all my trips are bad trips. Boy, they will beat the girly you in the academy! Well old man, you beat the happiness off me, are you happy now?!"_

"_Sorry Coyote, but I also pass, if Jake can enjoy it, then neither will I."_

"And tell me why aren't you high and trippy?"

"I… I'm pregnant Helen. This was going to be my last party before Doug and I dropped out." Susan stopped for a second to get her breath back.

"Oh, god Susan! I'm so sorry…" She felt silent for a moment, and then took Susan from the arm. "I can hear them nearby, we need to keep going. If not Jake's death will be for nothing."

_The party continued for a while, with the college kids laughing and drinking and trying their best to honor the fertility part of the party. Jake and Helen had laid their own sleeping bag not too far from the clearing and played with each other for a while before finally tiring out and falling asleep._

_Later during the next morning they waked up to the voice of Willow, and as they approached the clearing they saw a scene out of hell._

_At the center of the pentagram Vincent and Amanda were sitting Indian style, with Doug and Coyote holding a struggling Susan. Willow slowly approached to the older couple while brandishing the small axe they had used to gather wood._

"_We were wrong yesterday; we weren't trying to nurture the Earth, just ourselves. Gaia must want us to see the truth, and that's why she gave us the sacred Glitterberries. Now I understand that the best way of honoring her is with a sacrifice." Without any further warning she used the axe on Vincent neck, almost cutting it completely in a shower of blood; a second strike managed to finally sever the head. _

_Only Jake's hand in Helen's mouth and Susan's terror shriek prevented her to be heard when her best friend decapitated Amanda, even then she was shaking from the horror, and also from the almost serene smiles in the rest of the commune._

"_Susan, please come here, your turn to be one with Gaia has come."_

"_No, please…"_

_It was then that when Doug was bringing her girlfriend to the center without giving any kind of warming Jake jumped him and punched the younger man, freeing Susan._

"_Helen, Susan run!"_

_Helen grabbed Susan from the arm, and started running towards the path, regrettably the opposite from the VW they had used to come. It took her just a couple of second to realize that Jake was missing._

"_Coyote, pal. Stop there, I think you're on a bad, bad trip and I don't want to hurt ya."_

"_Don't worry Jake when we're one with the Earth you will thank me."_

_Of the commune Jake was easily the fittest of all, and thanks to Buxton Ridge he was also the only one who knew how to fight. But he was facing two other men, men who were under the influence and therefore pain alone could not stop, and Jake couldn't force himself to really hurt his best friends. Even then it took Willow with an axe to his uncovered back before they could subdue him. _

_Mad Dog Morgendorffer would be proud of his son for the first and last time of his life._

"The road is nearby, we just need to find someone to give us a lift and then we can come with an ambulance or something."

The sound of the cars imprinted new life to both women, giving one last push towards safety. It was at a scant few hundred feet from the road where disaster struck with an audible crack.

"Susan, are you okay?"

"Ouch, my ankle, I think is broken. Help me Helen."

"Okay, lean on me Susan; we're close to the road, we just need to hurry."

It was then that a man's hand grabbed Susan. It was Doug, with his face swollen and bleeding from a dozen different places by the fight against Jake. "Dear Susan, let me show you the blessings of Gaia."

"Helen, help me please!"

"Sorry." She wanted to help, she really did, but she could hear Willow and Coyote closing. She had to get to the road.

"Helen!"

Helen ran as fast as she had ever done, covering the distance to the road in record time and almost been hit by a car painted in a ridiculous flower power theme. From it the voice of a young man with a stupefied face emerged.

"Ma'am, are you okay?" Helen took no time to get into the passenger's side.

"I explain later, now drive!" He stood motionless for a second, but then he saw Coyote and Willow, bloody axe in hand and decided to do just that, especially after Willow did launch said axe towards his car, shattering the rear window.

"Wait Helen, you must commune with Earth, Gaia demands so!"

Many hours later the police and park rangers arrived to the massacre site in force, finding the clearing and within it eight sharpened poles, each one with the head of one of the kids, only one being empty…


End file.
